Love and War Alternate last 15mins of S1
by Carmabaeji - Lively Aria
Summary: Read it and see... Feedback loved!


'24: An alternate finale for season one.' By Aria  
  
Summary: My version of the finale to let me write a killer second season! Spoilers: Season one. Rating: PG-13  
  
11:42:53  
  
"Wilson." the voice on the other end of the phone answered.  
  
"Paul, I need you to pull the video tape from the ITS room between 8.50 and 9 o'clock this morning, when Jamie committed suicide." Jack didn't really have time to be all that pleasant with the voice on the other end of the phone, but he did remember the agent's name. Paul was a very experienced technical agent - who, when he wasn't deciphering code keys and searching for signals in white noise, staffed the media library at CTU Los Angeles.  
  
He heard the sound of typing in the background on the telephone, and waited for Paul to respond. "That's odd."  
  
"What?" Jack needed that videotape.  
  
"It's been deleted." Paul replied.  
  
"Check the digital back up." Jack ordered him, pressing the phone into the crook of his ear as he placed a second hand onto the wheel to turn a corner. Once round he lifted his hand again.  
  
"We don't keep back ups of the ITS room, isn't a class 3."  
  
"Yes, we do - you just need the right access code. Try C42 717."  
  
He over heard more frantic typing - Paul grunted into the phone. "8.53 to 8.58 has been deleted." Paul told him. "I'll bet that's the bit you're looking for."  
  
"Damnit." Jack muttered. "Is there anyway you can find out who deleted it?" He asked.  
  
"Yeah, but it'll take me a few minutes." Paul informed him.  
  
"Okay, do it - and upload the remaining video to the car I collected at the hotel." Jack told him, and then shut the phone call off, throwing the mobile with disdain into the passenger seat.  
  
At least George was looking for Nina, at least Teri and Kim were safe.  
  
11:44:23  
  
Nina lowered her weapon and walked towards the computer again. She only glanced momentarily at Teri, secure in the knowledge that she couldn't get out of her bonds.  
  
It seemed that just as she placed her gun down beside the computer, the screen flashed up with 'Lock down in progress'  
  
She muttered as many expletives under her breath as she could think of - in any language - and slipped her mobile out of her pocket. Somebody had discovered her ploy. "I need to get out of here." She told the female woman on the other end of the phone. She always spoke to this woman when she called this number, but she'd never met her and never asked her name.  
  
Nina ejected the cd. "I am co-ordinating your transport." The voice said calmly.  
  
'Sure' Nina thought, after all, it's wasn't their arses on the line here - as much as they valued their information, she wasn't of much use after her cover was blown. "The usual pick up point?" She asked, slotting the cd into her jacket pocket.  
  
"North-east corner, fifteen minutes." Nina nodded. "You will catch a plane to Frankfurt." The woman continued.  
  
She scowled, tabbing through the open computer programs. The computer virus she'd entered had downloaded nearly thirty seconds before the lockdown - video surveillance all over the building was screwed, but the images from the corridors from here out of the building were all destroyed - completely if Jamie had programmed this correctly.  
  
"Why Germany, why can't I come to you directly?" She asked her contact.  
  
The woman didn't know - it was what she'd been ordered to do. Nina grunted her compliance and hung up. She turned off the computer and grabbed a cloth, wiping it down - she pulled off the battery pack and began to clean inside that. She didn't have much time left - but she had to do this just in case.  
  
11:46:48  
  
Jack's phone rung briefly in the seat beside him before he picked it up an answered it as he always did - "Bauer."  
  
It was Paul, no pleasantries - either because he knew he had no good news, or because he knew time was of the essence. "I couldn't attach a name to the access code used to delete the files." He confessed, just as Jack's computer beeped into action.  
  
"Well what can you tell me about it?" Jack asked, just as he prepared to exit the freeway. His computer had just received the file that Paul had sent and it had opened immediately on Jamie sitting silently. He paused it to continue the conversation.  
  
"It was B42 542 - B42 is an executive level code." Paul told him.  
  
"Which means it had to have been accessed by someone at my level or higher." Jack commented - ignoring the beeping of the car behind him. "What level is Nina?" He asked Paul.  
  
"We're on lock-down - I can't get any information off the server."  
  
"George must have done it to shut off her access." Jack considered aloud. He thought of asking Wilson to call Division - but he could just as easily do that himself. "Okay, thanks Paul." He muttered, without thinking.  
  
"Sure - did you get the video feed? It should be downloading to you now."  
  
"Yeah it's on my screen." And with that, Jack shut his phone.  
  
11:49:56  
  
Nina glanced up at the door - it only took three minutes to get to the rendezvous point from here, but she had to get out of the building first. She stepped towards it - checking for any shadows directly outside and then moved over to Teri.  
  
She pushed the rolling chair towards the wall, turning it so its back was to the door - out of sight at a first glance "Alright Teri, I'm going to lock you in now." She told her, sure of what she had to do. "Somebody will find you soon." She told her, taking yet another glance at the door.  
  
She'd put Teri in the conference room because of its easy access from here - she needn't take a step out onto the floor in order to procure a potential hostage, but now that Teri had followed her in here, she'd have to die - especially as she'd said out loud that she was headed to Germany. It was a pity about the child though.  
  
Nina cocked her gun.  
  
11:50:02  
  
"I need to know Nina Myers security code for the surveillance system." Jack asked the voice at Division that manned the CTU satellite uplink.  
  
"She's a D95." The voice reported.  
  
"She doesn't have a C42 level?" Jack queried.  
  
"No." The voice was so calm - Jack was anything but, he could see CTU on the other side of the traffic lights that had just turned red.  
  
"Who in California has a B Level?" He looked over at the car next to him. There was a child asleep in the back seat.  
  
"Division agents of senior status."  
  
"Was her code surrendered after she finished working at district?" Jack watched as the tiny car in front of him stalled trying to pull away.  
  
"Yes." The voice returned.  
  
The car infront sputtered to life and pulled up to the traffic lights, stopping at the amber light for the next opportunity. Jack would have driven round him if there hadn't been cars all around. "Mason, Alberta and Chappelle they all have B level codes?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Alright, thanks." Nina had either hacked someone's code or one of them were working with her.  
  
11:51:37  
  
She opened the door and took a quick look down the corridor; gun ready to shoot a passing rat. All clear, she took a step out, and sprinted to the next door.  
  
The door to the parking garage seemed unguarded, but she wasn't going to pass it up - true it was a back door - rarely used, but it should still have been guarded during a lockdown. Jack had kneed a guy in the groin and decked him over the head in the early hours of the morning to get through here, but she was going to have to use deadly force instead tonight.  
  
Nina sprinted down to the door and pulled it open as quickly as she could - she spotted her car at the far end of the parking garage and ran alongside another, using the opportunity to glance around the parking lot and check for observers and cameras. There didn't seem to be any cameras in the garage - but the virus would have destroyed their feed anyway. She headed towards her car.  
  
"Give it up, Nina."  
  
George's voice from behind her and she froze. Damnit.  
  
"It's over, Nina. Put the gun down." Her primary gun hand was by her side - holding her weapon. An untraceable Glock she'd been given by her real boss.  
  
"George." She began. He was alone, no other voices since the beginning of conversation - George was smart, but he didn't have a tactical mind - if this were Jack there would be two silent agents behind her, closing in.  
  
She let the gun drop from her hands, making sure it didn't move too far away, a foot from her foot. That was enough. She held her hands out at her sides as she turned around, dropping them back down as she faced him.  
  
"All I want to know if why Nina? How could you betray us like this? What could they possibly have offered?" Each question brought him nearer to her, until he was a few inches away, looking sadly at her - imagining the moments they'd shared together when she worked at Division, when her job was to become his confidant.  
  
Nina waited patiently until he came close enough, and then pressed his hands together and brought her knee up into his groin, and the elbowing his head as his concentration dipped. She darted a hand into his hoister for his weapon and shot at his stomach, and then his shoulder.  
  
He was powerless, but still alive, his strong hand wounded and his head unfocused.  
  
Nina gripped his shoulders and turned him, so they were facing in the opposite directions, him towards the entrance - her towards the exit. George coughed her name, and she lowered him to the floor. "I'm sorry, George." She muttered to him. She felt sorry because she'd gotten to know him, but it was a necessary step.  
  
She knelt over him, and pulled the cd out of her jacket pocket and frisbee'd it towards her car, it disappeared into the darkness underneath it, and she heard rather than saw it clatter to the ground.  
  
Nina looked back at the parking garage and collected her Glock from the floor above his head, avoiding looking at the dying man in front of her - he was slowly loosing consciousness and slipping into death as she worked. She shot twice at the wall, lodging one bullet in the door, and then shattered a car windshield behind them.  
  
She gripped his hand, and when she felt no response back, she wiped her Glock with her shirt tail, and then placed it in his hand, she aimed just under her rib cage and winced - ready to 'chicken out' until she heard a car in the distance, burning rubber, by the sound of it.  
  
One thought filled her mind.  
  
Jack.  
  
Nina pressed the trigger and the gun fired, the bullet ripping through her abdomen and knocking her backwards. She let go of George's hand, already cooling, and let herself be knocked with the force of the bullet backwards.  
  
She looked at him for long enough to ensure the weapon was still in his grasp and then crawled to a car, two along from the one with the broken windshield, and settled back against the bumper. She heard Jack's car come to a halt, but took time to glance at the weapon. CTU standard issue, from the number it had been removed from the weapons locker here on base.  
  
"Drop the weapon, Nina." Jack growled at her. She tossed it, letting the tears start - she was in terrible pain, she needed medical attention. She prayed this worked.  
  
He approached her. "You put my wife and daughter in danger." He growled as he came closer, his tone of voice would have turned her on in another situation, but here she was in too much pain.  
  
"Not me." She whispered. He softened as he noticed her blood begin to seep. Jack moved over to George, pressing a few fingers to his neck. "He told me to tell you Kim was dead, and then." She trailed off.  
  
Jack placed his weapon down a few feet away - out of her reach just in case. Nina gasped in pain as a wave of stabbing went through her body. "He said that I should tell you - that it would be better to hear the news from someone who.and he was going to tell Teri." As he got closer, she appeared alarmed. "Kim's fine Jack! She's here - the coast guard brought her in, she's fine."  
  
"I know." He replied simply, kneeling beside her, Jack placed an arm behind her back and pulled her away from the car, lowering her onto her back, bending her knees, closing her wound physically and keeping the blood flowing to her head. "I followed him to the ITS room." She continued. "I found Teri." She began.  
  
She'd checked Teri's pulse before she'd fled the room - it'd been slow and faint. She'd put another bullet in her, to be sure. The woman would be dead by now. "Jack, she's in one of the storage rooms on the back corridor - she's dead, Jack."  
  
Jack rose to his knees and she noticed as her head lolled that there were other agents approaching. He was desperate to believe she'd been truthful to him, with exception to Teri's death. He'd slowly rose to his feet as she spoke. "Call her an ambulance!" He yelled at them as he ran away - to check on Teri.  
  
Nina began to loose consciousness as Tony approached her, kneeling as Jack had done and cradling her head in the same manner, keeping it low on the ground. He stroked her cheek. "Tony." She whispered, croaking his name.  
  
"I'm here, shush. I'm here." He consoled, just as she heard another agent flip open their mobile phone and say their name, they were getting her help.  
  
Nina smiled as she felt Tony's hand on her cheek again, and she blacked out.  
  
11:59:49  
  
Jack dropped to her floor, supporting his dead wife as he would a small child.  
  
11:59:53  
  
He stroked her cheek, letting the tears drop.  
  
11:59:57  
  
She was gone.  
  
11:59:59  
  
He crushed her to his chest, the bloody staining his colleague's shirt and his trousers, her body terrifyingly cool and motionless.  
  
12:00:00  
  
  
  
  
  
Whaddya think? Wait for _my_ second season!!! 


End file.
